Mark McGuinness confident not cocky, knowing aspects of his game need work

The defender came through the Arsenal academy at the same time as Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe.

Ireland's Mark McGuinness counts music and lawn bowls as two of his hobbies outside of football. Picture: ©INPHO/Nick Elliott

It’s unusual for a player who banks their club £10m to receive a critique as a parting gift but Mark McGuinness had it laid it cold when he left Cardiff City for Luton Town.

“I don’t think he’s great on the ball,” former Wales striker Iwan Roberts told BBC. “His distribution isn’t brilliant - I think he’d admit that.” 

Does he? The 23-year-old has been promoted to the Ireland squad, seeking his senior debut against Finland on Thursday or England at Wembley on Sunday.

“I’m not a perfect player,” said the centre-back. “There are things I’ve to work on, certainly more things than distribution that I would like to work on.

“Distribution is something I do feel I’m good at in terms of variation of passes, long distance passes, short passes.

“But coming up through the Arsenal academy system, seeing top players and being involved with them, you can’t get away with not being tidy on the ball.” 

It’s indicative of a player confident, rather than cocky, in his ability. From the time Liam Brady approached the player’s Derry-born father John to join the Gunners as a 10-year-old, expectation has surrounded McGuinness.

Not all Gunners cadets can be Gunners frontliners. Special talents emerge all the time but a cadre of particular calibre were his peers.

“We had a good age group at Arsenal – 2001 and 2000 born - the majority still in football,” he explains.

“The higher profile players would be someone like Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith-Rowe, they’d be my age group. A little bit older, Eddie Nketiah, Reece Nelson, they are all playing at Premier League clubs and thriving. That’s something I would like to get to as well.” 

Mikel Arteta felt McGuinness would require a different route to the top after initially immersing him in his pre-season plans.

Fellow strapping defender Mick McCarthy was the first to expose McGuinness to life outside the goldfish bowl by taking him to Cardiff in 2021. He’s since become a Championship staple and Heimir Hallgrimsson picked among a competitive defensive field as the next in line for promotion.

That bow will come but McGuinness won’t be consumed by urgency. He’s had far too broad an upbringing to be single dimension minded.

Music and lawn bowls are just two of the other constants in his life.

“Lawn bowls has been in the family for a while, my dad plays and my older brother (Tom) is over in Hong Kong playing at the minute,” he outlined.

“It’s a completely different sport to football as you can imagine but they play at a high level.

“It’s a nice sport to be a part of actually, a nice community and it’s something completely different.

“The fundamentals of being a high level athlete is pretty much the same, there’s a lot of dedication that goes into it. Fair play to them. They’ve been in a fortunate position to play for their country as well.” 

Then there’s an outlet beyond the realm of sport. 

“Music is part of my family. I have two cousins who are musicians and my dad’s side is very much into that.

“I enjoy that as well as a downtime and when you talk about relaxing and getting my mind off football, music is probably the biggest part of that for me.

“I play a little bit of piano but mostly guitar at the minute. I love it as a down-time just to play along and chill really.”